Today
,as in the past, one of the major concerns of the society as whole is the
alarming level of the corruption at all walks of life that remains to be a stumbling block in the
pursuit of development especially in the
third world countries. Corruption in all its forms like economic (bribery),
social (crime against women) and political (scams) or even religious for that
matter can be summed up with the term ‘inefficiency’ in the system as it
results in the wastage of valuable resources like money, time, physical and mental
effort of human being and even natural resources which can be otherwise
effectively utilized for the overall development of the society.
In
the recent past all over the world including India has witnessed conflicts and
pretests against the raging corruption. And in that backdrop world has also
seen debates regarding why corruption takes place and how it should be tackled.
Generally, such discourses were narrow both in its approach to the tracing the
origin of the corruption and suggesting remedial measures as well as they were
treating corruption simply as social or economic or political issue without
digging into the origin of the menace which involves the analysis of the very
nature of human being. That is why the remedial measures were also fully either
economic or social or political in nature in the form of appoint of Lokpal in
India or sentencing women molesters to death or downsizing the government and
thereby encouraging private sector as suggested by Washington consensus to get
rid of the menace of corruption in third world countries. Of course, I do not
advocate here that these are all little importance to tackle corruption as the
policy makers will be often compelled to take such pragmatic measures out of
the pressure of the situation comprehending the complexities of the social
system which is far more complex that writing essays on it.
Instead,
my contention is that root of the problem lies with the very nature of human
being and therefore, any effective solution to the problem of corruption and
thereby inefficiency should take this kind of dimension into account. First,
let me describe how corruption is related to the nature of human being. Human
being is fundamentally selfish and what we see today in the open is a society
constituted by such selfish human being individually and at the same time,
covering up their selfishness when it comes to the totality of the society as a
whole. In other words, human being will always have a temptation to give vent
to his/her personal selfishness with respect to his/her economic, social,
political matters or any other matters in the realm of life and he/she will
conveniently cover up or ward off this temptation when it comes to common
interests of the society unless until it has received the general societal
sanction. It is here society as a whole uses the principles of the religion,
morality or even fairness to either voluntarily control the temptation of the
selfishness at the level of individuals or forcefully impose these principles
upon others by the apparatus of state or religion to control them. Therefore,
it is the design of the structure of the social life with complete information
about each other and thereby known to each other that helps the society as a
whole to reduce the menace of the corruption. It is worth emphasizing here that
the familiarity between members of the society is highly dependent on the time
and space as people from faraway places need not be known to each other as well
as people who were known to each other years before might have forgotten each
other. Thus, it is the non-anonymity or
familiarity between members of a society which basically binds them together
without pulling their legs each other. The familiarity between members are maintained
through place of birth and residence, personal names, family name, residential
address, countenance of face etc. Of
course, there can be true saints or sufis who are essentially engaged in
training them remaining away from the reach of society to become fully
non-selfish following the principles of afore said institutions with a sole aim
of immersing themselves in the ultimate
truth of this miraculous and mysterious universe.
Thus,
any sort of corruption mentioned above, which is mostly individual in nature,
takes place when individuals involved are in a situation in which they are
anonymous to each other both individually or socially. For instance, many
people can be heard of complaining about taxi drivers charging more than what
is the actual charge which is simple example of the corruption. Why a taxi
driver behaves like so? Can he afford to do so consistently to his neighbors or
his friends? Generally, the answer will be No because they will be known to
each other and he will be sure that it is not fare to charge excessively not
only from the rational point of view of economics as he will lose the customers
if he does so but also he will be conscious of the fact that he will have to
interact with them in the future also. At the same time, if both traveler and
driver are unknown to each other, the economic selfishness of the driver
prompts him to charge more as he is away from the information scanner of the
general society as driver is pretty sure that he is not going to meet the
customer anymore. I still remember my harrowing experience I had at the
Secunderabad Railway Station in Andhra Pradesh in 2008 where I aboard a auto
rickshaw to go to a place which is not more than two kilometers away from the
railway station. After having got down at the destination, driver asked me Rs
100 which was about 900% higher than the actual charge and even threatened me
of manhandling if I did not pay it. I was sure that he behaved like that simply
because he came to know that I am not a citizen of Andhra Pradesh as I was not
able to speak Telegu which prompted his evil economic greed to exploit such a
situation. Not only that, when I took up this matter with people around then,
they also did not pay heed and, I think, they did so partially because they also realized that it not worth
intervening in the matter of a stranger as I was talking to them in English. At
the same time, till now I have no single experience of such a wanton behavior
from the taxi drivers in my locality simply because, I believe, that they
wanted to be fare to me as we are all known to each other.
Take
the case of bribery by government officials which is a matter of grave concern
everywhere. How many government employees known for bribery has worked in their
own hometown demanding bribe from his/her-own countrymen? If at all, such cases
will be isolated. Most of bribe taking government employees prefer to be
employed in offices away from their familiarity. As a result, they can enjoy
the fruits of anonymity as he/she will be a stranger in the society he works.
How many of us know the name, place, family of the village officer in our
locality? Very few as it is not relevant from the point of view of the service
he is expected to discharge. It is this anonymity that basically prompts as
well as buttress the government officials to demand bribe in exchange of their
service.
Even
the wide spread atrocities against women can be generally traced back to the
concept of anonymity as evidenced by the molestation efforts in public spaces
like bus, trains and cities the culprit and victim would not be familiar to
each other. Of course, isolated incidents of even close family members trying
to exploit women sexually are found which is undoubtedly either caused by the influence
of intoxicants or some perverse mental problems. A close look into the inherent
message to treat all women as sisters will reveal this. What does it mean to
ask you to treat somebody without any proximity of blood as your sisters or
brothers? How such people will become your sisters and brothers? The following interpretation can also be
attached with such a call to treat everybody as sisters or brothers. That is, treat
them as if they are known to you or living in your neighborhood as is the case
with your natural brothers and sisters whom you did not attempt of molest. This
kind of an approach to ensure dignity of women is the only possible measure as
I mentioned above that the tool of familiarity is highly time and space
specific implying that it is physically impossible to make sure that each and
every individual in a country or in the world can be acquainted to each other
so that mischief such as corruption or molestation can be wiped out. Therefore,
what is then feasible is to try to generate an impression among the people that
all are sisters and brothers and thereby implicitly convey the message that all
are members of the same family of society known to each other so that tendency
to exploit anonymity can be reduced.
I
think it is not required to explain further how big scams that the country as
well the world has witnessed in the past is closely associated with the proposition
I have outlined above. Here, there can be a slight difference from the
instances of inefficiency outlined above which is mostly individual in nature
whereas often the menace of large scale corruption in politics or in the
affairs of the state could be in the form of maneuvering of limited number of
people who do not know specifically whom they are cheating and those who are
being cheated do not know who are cheating them. In other words, public scams
arises in the dealing of public properties like 2G for which the claimants are
not as specific as it is in the case of private property. As a result, the
above mentioned problem of anonymity arises as it is ambiguous who owns what?
Of course, there can be critics saying that it is the people who own public
wealth. Such tenets in a democracy are often a working arrangement to run the
large complex system. How many Indians were informed or aware about the sale of
2G spectrum before this scam was brought to public notice? That is why there
are instances of corruption of greater magnitudes than 2G scam which are neither reported nor going
to be reported. Thus high profile corruption episodes takes place in a realm of
obscurity as this obscurity helps those indulge in corruption to fix the deal favorably
and get away with deal later without being caught as they have fixed the deal
in the darkness.
I
think all most all instances of corruption, for sure not all, and thereby inefficiency
in the system can be traced back to the concept of anonymity. Having said that,
I must acknowledge that fact that any problem confronted by the society need
not as simple as I have presented as society as a system is highly complex
involving interface of various kinds of dynamics and forces
simultaneously. However, the upshot is
that mischief like corruption, cheating etc confronted by the society is
closely related to the nature of human being and therefore, any remedial
measure to deal with such menaces will only be fully effective if we consider
this kind of a dimension to the issue of overall inefficiency in the system.
Mischiefs can only be wiped out in the ordinary situations if we appeal to the
conscience of those who are indulging in it. The task of appealing to the
conscience involves developing a bond either social or personal in which the element
of familiarity or acquaintance or non-anonymity has crucial role to play as it
enhances the degree of accountability. The only effective way of ensuring that
no couples cheat each other in their bed and thereby maintains fidelity is to
appeal to their conscience not to indulge in cheating of partner and thereby
develop a sense of being annoyed by the prick of conscience if he/she is
cheating their partner which can only be achieved if there is a strong personal
bond between couples for which they must know truly each other. There must be
an emotional relationship between them for which they must try to know each
other’s emotions in its true spirit. Thus,
the point I am making here is that to address social mischiefs like corruption
and atrocities against women, apart from trying to deal with such menaces by
law in the short run, a lasting solution has to devised taking cognizance of
the significance of reducing the anonymity and thereby enhancing mutual
accountability of the members of a society in the context of their interaction
and thereby developing a system capable of directly influencing the conscience
of human being and thereby making them highly sensitive to the interests of
others.
Solution
Designing
and developing clusters of the community of people of manageable size with each
cluster equipped with all possible facilities, requirements and services like
education, healthcare, shopping facility, agriculture etc, wherein members of
the same community voluntarily engages themselves in the activities of the same
community, could be at least a partial solution to reduce the menace of
anonymity and thereby increase the trust among the people. Let me reiterate one
thing that there must a deliberate attempt in the process of developing such a
community to inculcate the spirit of the community life which I would like to
term as “communitism” as nationalism so that each member would be proud of being
a member of a community and strive to enhance the pride of his/her community in
the best possible manner. For example,
community farming will help to reduce the danger of toxic pesticides along with
making available quality farm products at reasonable price as this system get
rid of the parasitical middle men in the existing system of market mechanism
who are primarily responsible for charging high price. Similarly, if a member of the same community
undertakes the responsibility of a village officer, issues of minor bribery can
be addressed to a great extent. Also, if the qualified members are appointed as
the teachers of the students of his own community about which he is proud of,
there would be a natural tendency to do his job most sincerely. The
socio-economic basis of Self Help Groups (SHP) such as Kudumbasree or Grameen Movement
in Bangaldesh under the leadership of Nobel Laureate, Muhammed Yunus, is this
sense of cummunitism and consequent collective responsibility to each other. If
a member of the SHG borrows money either from its own fund or a bank linked
with SHG, it is the collective responsibility of each member that he/she did
not default. What plays here all is mutual trust, mutual respect, mutual
familiarity, mutual accountability etc. Muhammed
Yunus appealed to the conscience of the fellow citizens and successfully
sensitized them about the predicament of their countrymen which became a
phenomenon worth emulating all over the world when people espoused his appeal
to join hands to ameliorate poverty. In this movement also we can see traces of
above mentioned factors like familiarity, feeling of being the same and
together either along the line of nation or community. Of course, communistism is not a panacea and
should not be, otherwise earth will be a haven!
